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[APD] Re: DIY UV




The following link is to information regarding my experimental very poor
man's UV sterilizer.  Any suggestions are welcome....even comments regarding
my sanity.

<http://users.ev1.net/%7Espituch/Steve>http://users.ev1.net/~spituch/Steve's%20Page/Aquarium/hardware/DIY%20UV/DIYUV.html

Neat idea!


You will have better long-term reliability building the unit out of the electrical PVC conduit (it looks just like the water pipe but is grey in color) since the conduit is UV resistant and the white water pipe is not. In normal sunlight there isn't much difference for years and years, but in the concentrated, high-intensity UV environment of a UV sterilizer you'll probably see problems with the plastic much sooner -- and much messier ;-)

You could probably make servicing easier by getting some O-ring sealed compression fittings to seal against the bulb. With fittings like that you could take the ends off for cleaning and you'd be able to use "normal" endcaps for the bulb itself. Not sure how well that would work since you'd need fittings that would fit the bulb snugly, but it might be worth a try.

BTW, a ring of stainless steel or titanium wire placed in the bottom of the unit and *grounded* would probably be a good safety feature since it would trip the GFCI that you have your DIY UV unit plugged into (as long as you have a GFCI for this unit your sanity is not in question :-) in case something failed with your DIY endcaps.

-Bill


***************************** Waveform Technology UNIX Systems Administrator

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